Was the Three Wise Men Story Wrongly Fabricated ?

Dear friends, here below is an email Q&As between SS( a sincere seeker) & me

SS: Do you admit that the three wise men story is wrongly fabricated or not?

Me: There were not just 3 wise men, there were 3 gifts therefore, tradition assumes there were 3 wise men.

I think there were more than 3 of them but they contributed to 3 expensive gifts to bring to child Jesus in the house. 

 I sincerely believe that the Magi really visited Jesus and Herod the Great did kill Bethlehem's babies under two.( that implied the Magi told Herod the star appeared roughly about 2 yrs ago)

It's not a fabricated story at all. The star was prophesied by a pagan prophet Balaam as the Star of Jacob roughly 3000 yrs ago and the location of Jesus' birthplace Bethlehem was foretold more than 700 yrs before His birth , and it was foretold His origin is from antiquity and from eternal. And He should be born in the tribe of Judah.  That was why the chief priests & scribes were able to pinpoint Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Messiah when the magi arrived in Herod's palace TO INQUIRE.

( Micah 5:2 )Bethlehem Ephrathah,
you are small among the clans of Judah;
One will come from you
to be ruler over Israel for Me.
His origin is from antiquity,
from eternity 

Matt 2: 3  When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.

5 “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet:

6 And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the leaders of Judah:
because out of you will come a leader
who will shepherd My people Israel.”

Dear SS, Can you explain away all these? Can any human being's birth could be so precisely predicted like Jesus who fulfilled all above prophecies and more???

I honestly believe it is a historical event though I understand it is hard for you not to doubt. If the star of Bethlehem is supernatural, I can accept it knowing nothing is impossible with our Creator God. I also firmly believe the integrity of Bible writers, they don't make up something to fool us. Above all, they dared not cheat!!!

I do firmly believe God exists and Satan, the fallen archangel also exists. You believe neither, so we of course have different perspectives about things. You don't need to question my honesty. I never question your sincerity. You need to have a paradigm shift to see differently. 

Dear SS, if you assume both God and Satan exist, would you have a 2nd thought about lots of things? We humans are pretty limited, of course this fool can't explain everything, can smart you explain everything or all mysteries of life away???

Karl Payne, the author of “Spiritual Warfare” and the former chaplain of the Seattle Seahawks, says the debate over the Star of Bethlehem, while interesting, does not detract from the core truth of Christianity.

“You cannot remove the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ from Christianity and still have Christianity,” he told WND. “Whether the shepherds and Magi saw a star, a planet or something else does not impact the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

The same is true, said Payne, as to the timing of Christmas. He said it is irrelevant whether Jesus Christ was actually born sometime in late December or not.

Myth or Reality?--The Star and the Magi

The Astronomy Behind The Star Of Bethlehem : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPRwww.npr.org

The Star Of Bethlehem And The Magi: Myth Or Reality?

Trying to relate biblical narrative to actual historical events is a complex field of scholarship that attracts interest both from inside and outside academia.

The purpose here is multifaceted, from the believer historian or astronomer who wants to prove that there is a connection, to the nonbeliever who wants to disprove any such thing. In the middle, there are those who want to investigate the historical and, often, the astronomical data in search of phenomena or events that justify a biblical mention. Chief among such events is the appearance, as mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, of the Star of Bethlehem illuminating the skies to the birth of young Jesus and guiding the Three Wise Men from the East toward his birthplace.

A recent book, The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi, edited by astronomer Peter Barthel and theologian George van Kooten, collects interdisciplinary perspectives from experts on the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, and modern astronomy. The book is the proceedings of an international conference that took place in 2014 at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Largely, the articles are a response to a previous study by astronomer Michael Molnar, published in his 1999 book The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi, where he claims that the star was an actual astronomical event, namely the appearance of Jupiter in conjunction with the sun, the moon, and Saturn in the constellation of Aries — which modern celestial mechanics calculations show occurred on April 17 in the year B.C. 6. According to Molnar, astrologers would interpret such celestial event as a major portent, signaling a sort of royal birth. Couple that with the expectation of a Messiah born from the house of David, and the connection between a celestial event and the actual birth was justified. According to Molnar, the Three Wise Men were actually (Persian? Arabian?) astrologers well-versed in the motion of the skies and, hence, keen to see such powerful astrological sign vindicated in reality.

Barthel and Kooten summarize the results of their conference into four questions: What? (the astronomical phenomena); When? (the chronology of events); How? (the role of astronomy and astrology); Why? (the evangelist's motivation). On the nature of the astronomical phenomena, there was complete agreement with Molnar, qualified agreement and radical disagreement. On the "when," most agreed that Jesus's birth took place between B.C. 7 and B.C. 5. On the "how," there was mostly disagreement as to the intentions and interpretations of astrologers from different regions in the Middle East. One particular difficulty was to justify the appearance of only three "wise men," given the supposed power of the celestial portent. Why not a multitude? As for the "why," Matthew was the one evangelist that considered celestial portents seriously, as they indeed colored his narrative throughout. For example, for the end of time prophecy he would write (Matthew 24:29): "the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken." Matthew saw prophecy mirrored in the skies.

Although opinions diverge, it seems that celestial events did occur around the birth of Jesus. The problem is that they often do, some more spectacular than others. To the extent that they provide context to a religious narrative, there is a confluence between myth-building and expectation, the skies being the realm of God and thus sacred, sending us signals of what is to come.

If nothing else, the Star of Bethlehem tells us of a time when looking up to the skies in awe and wonder was part of people's lives, something few of us relate to nowadays. Christmas offers the perfect context for us to rekindle this ancient connection.

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Marcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist and writer — and a professor of natural philosophy, physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. He is the director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth, co-founder of 13.7 and an active promoter of science to the general public. His latest book is The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher's Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything. You can keep up with Marcelo on Facebook and Twitter: @mgleiser